Dr. Jalal Alowais has been the supervisor general of the General Directorate of Emergency and Disaster and Ambulance Services at the Ministry of Health since May 2017.
He has been a trauma surgeon and an assistant professor at Al-Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University since 2011, and vice president of the Saudi Trauma Society since May 2016.
From January 2010 to October 2011 he was the senior registrar at Prince Sultan Military Hospital in Riyadh. He was also an assistant consultant at the National Guard Hospital from June 2008 until December 2009.
Alowais received his bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery in 2002 from King Saud University in Riyadh. He completed a fellowship in trauma and acute care surgery in 2014 from McGill University and Montreal General Hospital. He received a master’s in health leadership from the same university in 2015.
Recently, Alowais said that the ministry’s Health Crises and Disaster Management Center was working around the clock through a Saudi team of 50.
“They are distributed according to a schedule in order to monitor incidents and reports and ensure readiness by assessing the extent to which health care facilities are ready to deal with crises and disasters through a daily report that includes the number of beds in each of the Kingdom’s hospitals, the number of available blood units, the available staff for that day and their specialization, the number of ambulances and the available stock of essential medical supplies,” he said.
He said that these measures included all the Kingdom’s hospitals, including those affiliated with the ministry, the military, universities or the private sector. His Twitter handle is: @alowaisjalal.